Clinical and Experimental Evaluation of Diagnostic Significance of Alpha-Fetoprotein and Osteopontin at the Early Stage of Hepatocellular Cancer

We evaluated the possibility of using an experimental model of hepatocellular carcinoma to study oncomarkers of primary liver cancer and compared the diagnostic efficacy of alpha-fetoprotein and osteopontin in the experiment and in clinical practice. Experimental studies were performed on a model of hepatocellular carcinoma induced by administration of diethyl nitrosamine to Fisher-344 rats. In addition, the levels of α-fetoprotein and osteopontin were determined in 35 patients with hepatocellular carcinoma detected at stages I-II according to TNM classification. The proposed model of liver cancer in rats reflects the sequence of stages characteristic of hepatocellular carcinoma in humans: liver fibrosis—cirrhosis—cancer. This model is applicable for the study of tumor markers at the early stage of tumor development. Osteopontin was found to have a more powerful diagnostic potential then alpha-fetoprotein.